


The One Where Bucky Barnes Was a Yankees Fan All Along

by nennalem (melannen)



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Brainwashing, Gen, New York Yankees
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-11
Updated: 2015-03-11
Packaged: 2018-03-17 08:07:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3521798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/melannen/pseuds/nennalem
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I remembered somethin’," Bucky drawled, not looking away from Steve. "Somethin’ I guess I shouldn’t’ve remembered."</p>
            </blockquote>





	The One Where Bucky Barnes Was a Yankees Fan All Along

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on melannen.tumblr.com

Sam came home from a day out to find a tense semi-silence in the apartment. Neither one of them so much as looked up when he came in. Steve was in the kitchenette, putting clean dishes away with the sort of fussy little clinks that just sounded angry, and Bucky sat deliberately careless across the couch, his prosthetic arm draped over the back. He was staring at Steve’s back, and his eyes could have drilled right through him and then about half a mile beyond, probably. 

It wasn’t the sort of silence that meant anything dangerous was going on, but it was definitely a dangerous sort of silence. 

"All right, what happened?" Sam asked, shutting the front door carefully behind him. 

"I remembered somethin’," Bucky drawled, not looking away from Steve. "Somethin’ I guess I shouldn’t’ve remembered." 

Steve turned around. He had his elbows braced against the kitchen counter, the sort of defensive pose a ninety-pound weakling from Brooklyn might have tried. “There was something on the radio about that damned cheater Pineda,” he spat, “And now Bucky thinks he was a Yankees fan.” 

"I don’t think I was a Yankees fan, Rogers,” Bucky said. “I am a Yankees fan.” 

"You can’t—" Steve started, but Bucky cut him off. 

"I recited the scores and pitching stats for every single one of their games in the 1940 season," he told Sam. "1939, sure, that year was special, but 1940? That seems like pretty good evidence that I’m a Yankees fan." 

"That could have been implanted for a mission," Steve muttered sulkily. 

Bucky gave him an amazingly expressive look of long-suffering disbelief, but didn’t bother to say anything. 

"Look, Buck," Steve pleaded, picking up a coffee mug and turning it around in his hands. "I know you weren’t a Yankees fan, you went with me to every Series game in 1941, you hated them just as much as I did—” 

"I pretended I did," Bucky said with a smirk, "Because it was adorable to watch you get all righteously het up about how awful they were." 

"THEY BROKE FAT FREDDIE’S KNEE." He slammed the mug down on the counter with a noise so sudden that they all startled, even him. 

A breath later, when they had all realized it was just a coffee mug hitting marble, Bucky stood up. “They play the game to win,” he said through his teeth. “Just like you do.” 

"Bucky," Steve said, and then, "Bucky, you can’t be a Yankees fan.” 

"Why not? I’m not allowed to be anything you don’t remember me being? You think I always told you the whole truth about everything? Because I gotta tell you, Steve—" 

"That’s not what I meant!" 

"Then why not?" 

"Because, because you’re Bucky. And they’re the Yankees.” 

Bucky pointed at him, left-handed. “See, this is exactly why I never told you back when it still mattered.” He grabbed a coat off the rack. “I’m leaving. Maybe I’ll go watch a good team play baseball.” 

"I hope a foul ball hits you in the face!" Steve shouted after him as he slammed the door behind him. "Maybe it’ll bring you to your senses," he added more quietly after Bucky was gone. 

Sam walked very slowly over to the couch and sat down. “That wasn’t actually about baseball, was it?” he asked. 

Steve slumped down at the other end of the couch and rubbed at his temples. “I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know. It’s just — if Bucky’s been a Yankees fan all this time, and I couldn’t even tell — maybe I never knew him at all. Maybe we weren’t even friends. Maybe I stuck with him out of, I dunno, blind loyalty, because I didn’t have anyone else. And I guess he just thought it was ‘adorable’ to watch me get all ‘righteously het up’.” 

"Don’t you think that’s maybe a bit much to extrapolate from an argument about baseball?" Sam asked gently. 

"Maybe," Steve said, and looked up. "Maybe. But— a Yankees fan, Sam. The damn Yankees. If it had been anything else. That’s not just baseball, that’s—” He took a deep breath, and spread his hands as if to gesture ‘everything’. “Do you think it could be some kind of implanted memory? A trap Zola set in case he started to remember?” 

Sam though about this carefully. Weirder things had happened. But, well. Baseball wasn’t his sport the way it was Steve’s, or apparently Bucky’s, but he knew enough to get by. And there were some things that everyone knew, just part of being a red-blooded American. He shook his head. “I dunno, Steve. Brainwashing someone into becoming a Yankees fan? That might be too evil even for Hydra.” 

"Yeah," Steve sighed in agreement, and slumped back against the sofa cushions.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] The One Where Bucky Barnes Was a Yankees Fan All Along](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13231932) by [sisi_rambles](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sisi_rambles/pseuds/sisi_rambles)




End file.
